Horizon City police arrested El Paso County firefighter Andrew Michael Martinez Jr. after a teenager told investigators he sexually assaulted her on three occasions this year, according to the police account reported by KFOX. Martinez, 23, was booked into the El Paso County Downtown Jail on Wednesday and remained in custody as of Thursday on a combined $100,000 bond.
Martinez, an employee of El Paso County Emergency Services District No. 2, faces two counts of sexual assault of a child and one count of indecent contact with a child. KFOX, citing the police report, said the allegations involve three incidents in Horizon City and El Paso County earlier this year.
How the Relationship Allegedly Began
The police account says Martinez and the teen met on Instagram and began texting. He initially said he was 19, then disclosed he was 23; she told him she was 16, not 14, according to KFOX’s account of the report.
The first alleged incident was on May 30, when Martinez went to the teen’s home and groped her, according to the report. The teen later told investigators about the encounter.
A Movie Night Turns Into a Second Alleged Assault
The second alleged assault occurred on June 13, after the pair went to see the film Obsession and then to Martinez’s home, according to the report. The teen told investigators he stopped when he noticed she was crying.
The third alleged incident was on September 26, when the teen went to Martinez’s home and later had sex with him there, according to her account. The report says Martinez told her to lie to her family about his identity and why he was driving her home. Her family told him that day that she was 15, and Martinez later told investigators he thought his career was going to be ruined.
Investigators Say Photos Corroborate Timeline
Investigators interviewed Martinez on September 27. He said he believed the teen was 18, admitted exchanging nude photographs with her and denied having sexual intercourse with her, according to the report. Investigators said cellphone photographs appeared to corroborate the timeline described by the teen.
El Paso County Emergency Services District No. 2 placed Martinez on unpaid administrative leave, according to a statement cited by KFOX. The district said it is cooperating with law enforcement agencies conducting the ongoing investigation but declined further comment because the matter involves an active law enforcement and personnel investigation.
Online safeguards and local support
Meta said its Instagram Teen Accounts, introduced in September 2024, place teens in strict messaging settings so they can be messaged only by people they follow or are already connected to, according to Meta. The announcement does not establish which settings applied to the account in this case. The Advocacy Center for the Children of El Paso says it provides child-friendly interviews, counseling and intervention during child-abuse investigations and prosecutions, with all services offered at no charge, according to the Advocacy Center.
Part of a Larger National Pattern
Cases like this one are unfolding against a backdrop of sharply rising online enticement reports nationwide. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children received 1.4 million CyberTipline reports concerning online enticement in 2025, a 158% increase from the year before. More than 800 of those reports involved an offender traveling to meet a child in person, and the organization logged more than 80,000 reports concerning sextortion within that total.
NCMEC also recorded an average of 137 financial-sextortion reports per day in 2025, a 37% jump over the previous year, and escalated more than 53,000 urgent or imminent-danger reports to law enforcement. The organization has said the surge in enticement reporting was influenced in part by the 2024 enactment of the federal REPORT Act.
